Red Dirt Music Was Born Here

Before it was a music genre, red dirt was just soil—iron-rich, deep red, and unmistakably Oklahoman.

Late in the 1970s, a new sound was taking shape in Stillwater, Oklahoma. A sound built on songwriting and musicianship, not image. Rowdy, real, and grounded in the dirt it would soon be named after. 

Stillwater sits in the heart of red dirt country. Surrounded by farmland and powered by the energy of a college town, it was the right place for something different to take hold.

Two Oklahoma State University students rented a house on a 149-acre property just outside Stillwater in 1979. Known as The Farm, it became a gathering place for all kinds, students looking to party, musicians looking for a jam session and anyone else who wanted a place where the world stopped.  

It was there these musicians created the sound that became Red Dirt Music. Bob Childers—widely regarded as the godfather of Red Dirt music—was central to it. So were Tom Skinner, Jimmy LaFave, and Randy Crouch.  

Their music mixed folk, gospel, country, rock, and blues. They played what they loved, broke the music rules and created a new sound of their own. 

In the 1990s and early 2000s, a new generation of Stillwater-based acts gave the music broader reach.

The Red Dirt Rangers, The Great Divide, Cross Canadian Ragweed, Jason Boland and the Stragglers, Stoney LaRue, and Turnpike Troubadours carried the sound from the Tumbleweed and The Strip in Stillwater into clubs, bars, dancehalls, and towns across Oklahoma and Texas. They sold CDs from the truck, toured hard, and built followings that loved the music.

These artists didn’t wait for Nashville to catch on. The industry didn’t have a lane for them, so they built their own. The music came first and the scene followed. Room by room, stage by stage. 

Red Dirt didn’t fade, it kept growing in popularity and influence. From backyard shows and barroom sets to Texas honky tonks, outdoor festivals, and sold-out nationwide tours, the music traveled far without losing what made it. 

Today, Red Dirt is one of the most popular and best-selling forms of country music. A new generation of artists like Kaitlin Butt, Wyatt Flores and Southall have carried it forward and grown it even more.

Red Dirt Music was born in Stillwater, and Stillwater will always be its home. 

Every shirt tells a story. See the our Red Dirt shirts here: 
Red Dirt Rowdy
Red Dirt America